Dallas firefighters worked in the heat Sunday at the Ridgecrest Terrace apartments in west Oak Cliff. Dallas Fire-Rescue Lt. Todd W. Krodle died after he fell through a roof while battling an electrical fire at the complex.

A Dallas firefighter died after falling through the roof of a burning west Oak Cliff apartment building Sunday afternoon.

Lt. Todd W. Krodle, a nearly 18-year Dallas Fire-Rescue veteran, was fighting an electrical fire that broke out about 4 p.m. in a bottom-story unit of the Ridgecrest Terrace apartments in the 5600 block of Plum Grove Lane. The flames climbed the walls and spread into the attic, fire officials said.

“At first I thought it was a sandstorm,” said Dezarae Ferguson, who rapped on her neighbors’ doors as they streamed out of the stairwell amid thick smoke.

Minutes later, Ferguson saw Krodle, 41, and another firefighter climb a ladder to the roof of the two-story building. A Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman said they were trying to punch out a ventilation hole.

“The guy went up there, and he started shaking the roof to see if it was safe,” Ferguson said. “Then all of a sudden he just went through and it was a big ol’ poof of smoke everywhere.”

Ferguson and another witness debated whether he had been in the unit 10 or 20 minutes before firefighters were able to carry him out on a stretcher, visibly burned.

“He was in there a long time” Ferguson said. “It was scary.”

Krodle was pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital. No residents were injured in the fire.

In a prepared statement, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings called Krodle a “courageous and dedicated firefighter.”

Krodle was married and had two children, according to WFAA-TV (Channel 8).

“We must never lose sight that fire service is an extremely dangerous business, and this brave man died doing the dangerous job he loved,” Rawlings said.

Fire investigators traced the blaze to a malfunctioning appliance plugged into a surge protector.

Several residents described the complex — a gray, rundown place where one resident’s sink was backed up with sewage water on Sunday — as rife with safety hazards.

A second, apparently unrelated fire gutted a unit in the same complex early Sunday morning. Fire officials didn’t have details on the earlier blaze, but Ferguson said it was also an electrical fire.

The city of Dallas has sued twice to have Ridgecrest closed and declared a public nuisance, alleging exposed wiring, rotting floors and sewage spills.

Between 2008 and 2009, several buildings at the complex were draped in tarps to cover holes in the roofs, which were later repaired. An electrical fire during that period rendered one building uninhabitable for more than a year.

Fire officials did not say Sunday how Krodle fell through the roof nor whether the fire was linked to any maintenance issues at the complex.

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